University of Aberdeen Centre for the Novel

Join @gothicstudies.bsky.social as our new Assistant Editor!

Deadline Monday 9th March.
Annual honorarium of £200.

More information in attached image, via the @igagoths.bsky.social newsletter or you can message me and I can send you the text if preferred.

Reading Scotland with Gioia Angeletti Early 19th-century Scottish Migration Literature Tuesday, 3rd February 2026 6.00–7.00pm (German time) on MS Teams www.scotland.uni-mainz.de

Reading Scotland with Gioia Angeletti: Early 19th-century Scottish Migration Literature
3 Feb, free online

Prof Gioia Angeletti examines how Scotland’s experience of “internal colonialism” after the 1707 Union shaped its literary engagement with empire & migration during the long #C18th

In the most contemporary lit lecture that's ever happened, I started my Scottish Lit lecture today talking about Ali Smith's Glyph, three days before its publication date. (I mean, just the short text used in advertising, but still!)

TALK: Lifting the Veil on Ann Radcliffe's 'The Mysteries of Udolpho' - Professor Angela Wright We are delighted to welcome Professor Angela Wright for the final event as part of the Fear and Fascination Gothic Exhibition programme. This talk is a collaboration with the Centre for the Novel and ...

www.abdn.ac.uk/collections/...

Event Alert!

Join the English Literature Society and the Centre for the Novel next Wednesday (November 5th) for 100 Years of Mrs Dalloway with Dr Elizabeth Anderson, a celebration of Woolf’s iconic novel and the authors it inspired

📍King's College, University of Aberdeen NK10
🕰️: 17:30~18:30

If you're around in Aberdeen in the evening on Saturday 4th October, please consider going to this exciting WayWord event sponsored by the Aberdeen University Centre For the Novel:

www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/sch...

Prof. Baker and AUCfN will also be hosting an impromptu reading group based around literary readings on a maritime theme between 2:30pm and 4pm on Friday 18th July, also at Aberdeen Central Library. Tickets and information can be found here: aberdeencity.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spyd...

On Wed 16 July at 6pm, Prof. Tim Baker and Aberdeen University's Centre for the Novel will be hosting a discussion group focusing on 'The Silver Darlings', Neil M. Gunn's 1941 novel of North Sea fisheries, in Aberdeen Central Library.

More information here: aberdeencity.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spyd...

Poster for Fear and Fascination: A Gothic Exhibition at the University of Aberdeen. The design features a magenta and black gothic collage with crows, a ruined castle, and a distressed figure. Main text reads: “FEAR AND FASCINATION – A GOTHIC EXHIBITION.” Additional details: “19 May – 7 December, The Gallery, Sir Duncan Rice Library.” The University of Aberdeen logo appears at the top left. Background layers include gothic-style patterns and faint text: “Creature open; it breathed.” A charity registration statement appears in small print at the bottom.

Step into a world of Gothic terror in the latest exhibition from University Collections opening next month.

The exhibition looks at how fear has been used to thrill and unsettle readers through monsters, villains, and transgressive themes.

More 👇
buff.ly/QQ8q0pL

PUBLIC TALK Sophie Coulombeau - Brothers & Lovers: Frances Burney and the Gothic 29 May 2025, 17:30 - 18:30 TALK Sophie Coulombeau 'Brothers and Lovers: Frances Burney and the Gothic' Thursday 29 May 2025 The University is delighted to welcome author and radio presenter Sophie Coulombeau in this talk showcasing some of the research from her recent publication 'Reading with the Burneys' which is closely linked to Aberdeen. About the Speaker Dr Sophie Coulombeau is a Senior Lecturer in eighteenth-century literature and culture at the University of York. She is also a creative writer. Her debut novel, Rites, came out in 2012 and her second novel, Monster: A Tale, will be published by Northodox Press in 2026. Sophie writes and presents for radio and regularly creates features on mainstream arts and history for publications including BBC Arts, the Guardian, the Independent, the Times Literary Supplement, and History Today.

About this Talk In this talk, Sophie Coulombeau will showcase some of the research she published recently in her book Reading With The Burneys (Cambridge University Press 2024). This publication centres on an all-important annotated set of Fanny Burney's first novel Evelina, which is held in the University of Aberdeen's Special Collections. Sophie Coulombeau and Fanny Burney Frances Burney (1752 – 1840), also known as Fanny Burney, was an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. In 1786–1790 she held the post of "Keeper of the Robes" to George III's queen, Charlotte. Her long writing career gained her a reputation as one of England's foremost literary authors. Her fiction had a significant influence on the novels of Jane Austen, who greatly admired her style and drew on Burney's characters in creating her own. Burney has traditionally been thought of as a 'novelist of manners' far removed from the Gothic fiction of the time, but this talk explores how her four novels do in fact take part in some of the same conversations, and employ the same ideas. Coulombeau will be examining selected passages from Evelina with gothic features such as oppressive fear, fainting women, sexual menacing from villains, and will conclude by focusing closely on the way in which Evelina's brother/lover character Mr Macartney raises the spectre of incest - a key Gothic trope. Using the copy of Evelina now held in the University Collections, Frances Burney's own brother Charles attempted to model himself on Macartney when he lived in Aberdeen, with troublesome consequences!

This event is part of a programme of events that will be accompanying the latest exhibition from University Collections. Fear and Fascination - A Gothic Exhibition runs until 7 December 2025. Speaker Sophie Coulombeau Hosted by University Collections Venue The Sir Duncan Rice Library Contact This FREE talk is open to all and will take place in the Sir Duncan Rice Library. If you would like to attend in person, please reserve a seat by following the booking link. Parking at the University is FREE at the time of this event. REQUEST A RECORDING OF THIS TALK We are hoping to record this talk. If you are unable to attend the event in person but would like to receive a link to the recording that will be prepared after the event, please email uoacollections@abdn.ac.uk Booking Online booking available

V excited to be returning to Aberdeen to talk about 'Brothers & Lovers: Frances Burney and the Gothic'. I'll be drawing on research outlined in my @cambridgeup.bsky.social Element 'Reading With The Burneys', and playing show-&-tell with the all-important Evelina in @uoacollections.bsky.social!

Image: “Tobias Smollett”, unidentified painter, c. 1770. National Portrait Gallery NPG 1110 A portrait of a middle-aged man in three-quarters profile. He has a long nose and a wry, slightly amused expression. He wears a white, curled bob-wig and a high-collared blue coat with a hint of gold braid.

Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) was baptised #OTD, 19 March.

George Orwell thought him “Scotland’s best novelist”, “whose outstanding intellectual honesty may have been connected with the fact that he was not an Englishman” (TRIBUNE magazine, 22/9/1944)

#18thcentury
1/5
orwell.ru/library/revi...

The Living Mountain: why a second world war meditation on nature’s fragility and wonder is still relevant today Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain is a meditation on the Cairngorms. Decades on, its quiet wisdom remains urgent, reminding us how to truly see nature.

First published by @abdnunipress.bsky.social in 1977, Nan Shepherd’s 'The Living Mountain' traces her poetic encounter with the Cairngorm Mountains.
Now, with publisher Scribner bringing out its first US edition, The Conversation examines the book’s continuing legacy abdn.site/zL5uY

Freya Johnston · Itch to Shine: Austen’s Suitors The main business​ of almost all Jane Austen’s fiction is to portray that brief period in a young woman’s life...

‘In Austen’s writing, humiliation can be shielded by comedy, and bruised feelings to some extent mollified, such that anger and grief can be transformed into a kind of sympathetic, knowing, female amusement.’

Freya Johnston on Austen and marriage:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Meet the Author: James Robertson Join us at Dunbar Library on Sat 12th April for an audience with award-winning author James Robertson!

Meet the Author: James Robertson
12 April, Dunbar – free

James Robertson’s award-winning novels include Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still, & News of the Dead. He is also a poet, short story writer, & Scots language advocate
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/meet-the-a...

Are you looking for work experience for Summer 2025? A range of internships are now open for applications - including a position with the library!

Please check the out the link for more information:

www.abdn.ac.uk/careers/experience/placements/internships-alongside-your-studies/abdn-internships/

A shelf of books by Daphne Du Maurier

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's

Commemorating and Editing Robert Fergusson at the 250th Anniversary of his Birth
18 March @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social & online – free

A talk by Prof @rhonabrown.bsky.social of @uofglasgow.bsky.social for
@abdnriiss.bsky.social
#18thcentury #literature #poetry
www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/news-e...

A little black cat laying with her tummy up next to the book 'Will my Cat Eat my Eyeballs' by Caitlin Doughty, the cover of which is a striking silouette of a black cat on a red background

Happy #WorldBookDay!
Please tag us if you're child has dressed up as Adam Ferguson, Sorely Maclean, Patrick Gordon, or any of our iconic AUP subjects. (I think my kid kind of phoned it in with her costume!) and enjoy some of our completely free and #OpenAccessBooks
www.fulcrum.org/aberdeenunip...

Greetings! The University of Aberdeen Centre for the Novel has now landed on Bluesky, and will share links of interest as well as news of its activities and events here.

We've now launched the 2025 round of funding to support the study of @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social archive, library and museum collections. I'm grateful to the Friends of @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social for their support, which makes this possible.
Applications welcome!
www.abdn.ac.uk/collections/...

British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) 25th Anniversary Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Oxford Faculties of English & History are delighted to host the 25th anniversary conference of the British Association for #Victorian Studies on 23–25 July.

Papers on any aspect of long-nineteenth-century studies are welcome (submit by 17 March). #BAVS #Victorianstudies #19thC

WayWORD Festival | Aberdeen's Literary Cross Arts Festival WayWORD is a youth-led arts festival brought to you by the WORD Centre for Creative Writing, University of Aberdeen. Workshops, author events, panel discussions and performance nights are all FREE wit...

The fine people @waywordabdn.bsky.social have put together a banger of a summer programme! Painting! Graffiti! Theatre! Queer poetry in many tongues! Me chatting to Heather Parry about nasty things! Do come. www.waywordfestival.com

YouTube video by University of Aberdeen ABDN Internships | University of Aberdeen | Emma

Attention UoA Students!

28 part-time paid internships exclusive to University of Aberdeen students with businesses & organisations in the nature, cultural and creative sectors as well as SMEs are LIVE for applications (closing 2 Feb). More info: www.abdn.ac.uk/careers/expe...

youtu.be/1Irk2SSU34w